Kong is King: Reborn as the Apex Ape Chapter 1.

All chapters will be made available after I edit EVERYTHING. For now, enjoy this first chapter. Oh, and Anodite updates today.

Chapter 1 – The Last Day of Marty Briggs

-0-

The day Marty Briggs died, he didn’t even get his morning coffee.

His shift had started late—traffic had been hell, a raccoon had chewed through a wire near the gorilla exhibit overnight, and the vending machine by the staff locker room had once again swallowed his dollar bill without even the decency of blinking a red light in protest. It was shaping up to be another typical Tuesday at the Cedar Rapids Zoo, and Marty was tired, underpaid, and slightly hungover.

He was also, to his credit, one of the few people left on Earth who still loved animals without trying to Instagram it.

At 39, Marty had the look of someone who had tried optimism for a few years and returned it for store credit. He had a gut from years of breakroom snacks, a permanent notch of worry between his eyebrows, and forearms that could haul a 100-pound bag of feed like it was laundry. His boots were scuffed. His back ached. And yet, he greeted the gorillas with a grin and a joke every morning.

“Alright, fellas,” he muttered as he walked past the outer gate of the Silverback habitat, “Let’s not throw poop today. I’ve only got one clean shirt left.”

Inside the enclosure, the troop stirred. It was a big habitat—boulders, fake logs, a man-made stream. The alpha, Brutus, was lounging near the shade, massive arms draped over a tire swing like a retired boxer judging a fight from afar. The younger ones tumbled around with the lazy chaos of toddlers in a bouncy castle.

Marty liked gorillas. They were predictable. You gave them space, respect, and the right food at the right time, and they left you alone. Mostly. Brutus had smacked a trainer into a fence a few years back, but Marty understood that one. The guy had tried to pull a banana out of his cargo shorts mid-shift like some kind of snack magician.

Marty wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t brave either. But he was responsible.

So when the shrieking started—real, human shrieking—it wasn’t instinct or training that sent him sprinting toward the exhibit. It was that goddamned voice of responsibility. The one that kicked in even when his knees told him to sit the hell down.

He got to the edge of the enclosure and froze.

A kid. Maybe five, six years old. Yellow raincoat. Snot and tears streaming down his face. Inside the exhibit. How the hell—?

The child had fallen from the railing, or climbed over—Marty never found out. He only saw the small figure near the boulders, and Brutus, already rising from his perch. The air changed. The gorillas stopped moving. Every single one of them turned toward the child.

The kid was sobbing, too frozen to run. Marty saw the wide, confused eyes of Brutus, the brief hesitation, and then the Silverback's nostrils flared.

Brutus wasn’t charging. Not yet. But it was coming.

No time to call for help. No time to think.

Marty jumped.

Over the rail, into the mulch and fake jungle of the exhibit. He landed hard—his knee barked in protest—but he was up, running, fast as he could.

“Hey! Over here! Look at me, big guy!” he shouted, waving his arms like a lunatic.

Brutus turned. His eyes narrowed.

And then it happened.

The world didn’t slow down like they say in movies. It sped up. Brutus charged—not at the kid, but at Marty. It wasn’t rage. It was primal. Territory. Instinct.

Marty grabbed the boy with both arms, pivoted, and tried to shield him. He saw the huge, black blur closing in. A wall of fur and fury.

And then Brutus struck.

It was a punch. Or a tackle. Or both. Marty didn’t have time to process it. One moment he was upright, the next—he wasn’t.

There was pain. Then there wasn’t.

There was darkness.

But not the kind Marty expected. Not the tunnel-of-light kind. Not the life-flashing-before-your-eyes kind.

This was deeper. Thicker. Like being pulled into molasses made of shadow.

And then—

He woke up.

He wasn’t cold. He wasn’t hurt.

He wasn’t human.

-0-

There are moments in life when reality cracks—not like a mirror, but like a bone. You don’t notice the break right away. You just feel something’s wrong. Out of place. Off.

That’s what waking up was like.

Marty—except he wasn’t Marty anymore—opened his eyes to the sensation of wind. Not breeze, not air conditioning. Real wind, thick with moisture and wildness. It pressed against his face like a hot, damp hand. The second sensation was weight. He was heavy. Beyond heavy. The ground beneath him didn’t feel like concrete or mattress or mulch—it felt like earth, crushed and compacted by something massive. Something alive.

His eyes blinked open fully.

The sky above was pale and yellow-tinted, streaked with dark clouds that moved too quickly. Sunlight pierced through in wide, golden shafts, hitting distant trees the size of office buildings. Trees that moved. Not in the wind. They swayed like giants brushing past one another.

He exhaled.

The breath that left his body was a snort—a deep, thunderous puff of air that sent loose leaves skittering a dozen feet.

“What the hell?”

He tried to speak, but it came out as a guttural growl, like a garbage disposal full of gravel. His throat didn’t work the way it used to. It was deeper. Wider. Alien.

Panic bloomed, sluggish and thick. He looked down at his hands. But they weren’t hands.

They were paws the size of manhole covers, black-furred and wrinkled, knuckles as thick as basketballs. His chest rose and fell like the piston of a locomotive. When he tried to sit up, the ground sank beneath him. Birds—strange, feathered things with fanged beaks—burst into the air in a frenzy of flapping and shrieking.

Marty’s mind screamed while his body moved on autopilot. He rolled onto all fours, and the movement felt natural. Too natural. Like stretching a long-forgotten limb.

His reflection caught his eye—in a puddle, ringed with cracked stone and glowing moss.

The face looking back was not his.

It was a gorilla’s, but not like Brutus or any zoo specimen. This was the stuff of legend. A monstrous ape, broad-shouldered and thick-necked, with a jawline like a cliff face and eyes that glowed faintly amber in the low light.

The face- his face, and frame- also his, resembled that of King Kong. Scratch that. He WAS King Kong.

The shock was just too much and he screamed. But it wasn’t a scream. It was a roar.

A full-bodied, chest-rattling blast of fury and confusion that sent the puddle rippling and every animal within a hundred yards bolting for cover.

He ran.

Or rather—he charged, crashing through underbrush that would’ve stopped a bulldozer. Trees splintered under his fists. He tore through a field of tall ferns, stomped over ancient roots as thick as subway tunnels. Every step shook the ground. His muscles burned, not from pain, but power.

Birds. Lizards. Mammals he couldn’t even name. The forest was teeming with life—bigger, stranger, hungrier. Some watched him. Some fled. None dared come close.

Until one did.

He felt it first. A tremor in the earth, like footsteps. Heavy ones. The kind that made trees shiver and birds go silent.

Then came the smell—meat and blood and rot.

And the sound. A low rumble, like distant thunder rolling through a canyon.

He turned.

The trees behind him shook, parted, and then a T-Rex emerged.

It was massive, even by Hollywood standards. Easily 25 feet tall, covered in dappled green and brown scales. Its eyes locked onto him with cold, reptilian intelligence.

Kong froze.

Not out of fear—but instinct. He was no ones's prey. He was something else.

The T-Rex let out a bellow that split the air, a sound like a freight train full of jagged glass. It charged.

Marty had no idea what he was doing. He just moved.

When the jaws came for him, he pivoted on one foot, swung wide, and brought a fist the size of a SmartCar into the Rex’s snout.

CRACK.

The skull gave like a paper cup. Teeth flew. The dinosaur’s head snapped sideways and hit a tree with a sound like a wet watermelon hitting concrete.

The body kept going—momentum carried it past him—then crumpled.

Dead.

Just like that.

Kong stared. Chest heaving. Heart pounding.

Then a thought slid into his head. Not words, but something deeper. Primal. A truth written in bone.

'I’m not in the world I knew.'

The forest fell quiet again. Even the insects seemed to pause.

He sat down, slowly, letting the adrenaline drain out of him like water from a cracked barrel.

In the distance, a volcano smoked. Green mist drifted across the sky, curling low and thick over the hills.

This was not the world of Cedar Rapids. Not Iowa. Not Earth as he knew it.

Marty Briggs had died.

Now, he was Kong.

And he had just stepped into hell’s backyard. Or as historians would call it...the Jurassic Era.